Bahamas is the moniker of Afie Jurvanen, a Canadian singer-songwriter, and his latest album is Barchords (2012). It contains some marvelously cracked jewels like “Lost in the Light.” And the picture to the right does not capture the illustrative depth of character and emotion rendered by Afie in the aforementioned tune. I just thought the moustache was 110% black angus solid beef-out style and ought to be shared.

It’s what makes the pancake hold still
while you slip the spatula under it
so fast it doesn’t move, my father said
standing by the stove.
All motion stopped when he died.
With his last breath the earth
lurched to a halt and hung still on its axis,
the atoms in the air
coming to rest within their molecules,
and in that moment
something slid beneath me
so fast I couldn’t move.

Santigold‘s stage name was formerly “Santogold,” but that was totally stupid so she changed it.

Anyway, this lady is definitely a creator. The intro to this song is mesmerizing from the first time you hear it. Maybe in the future it will sound passé but only because Santigold did it way back in 2008.

The Goose
Do you want to know why I am alive today?
I will tell you.
Early on, during the food-shortage,
Some of us were miraculously presented
Each with a goose that laid a golden egg.
Myself, I killed the cackling thing and I ate it.
Alas, many and many of the other recipients
Died of gold-dust poisoning.

He was a big man, says the size of his shoes
on a pile of broken dishes by the house;
a tall man too, says the length of the bed
in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,
says the Bible with a broken back
on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;
but not a man for farming, say the fields
cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.

A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall
papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves
covered with oilcloth, and they had a child,
says the sandbox made from a tractor tire.
Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves
and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.
And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.
It was lonely here, says the narrow country road.

Something went wrong, says the empty house
in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields
say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars
in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.
And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard
like branches after a storm-a rubber cow,
a rusty tractor with a broken plow,
a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say.